Not many objective folk left in this country. Of those that are not many are tooled with a solid foundation in ‘civics’. (For those born in the last 50 years, ‘civics’ was a mandatory high school course that taught students how our government works.) If we add a third logical qualifier of ‘not stupid’ (something, by the way, that we are not allowed to measure) the number of Americans well qualified to participate in our representative democracy chokes down to roughly 311K or 0.09 percent (0.00088) of the 350,000,000 (or so) population of the United States.
I’ll not bore you with the math, but if you start with 350M and begin removing those not US citizens, those not of age, felons, disinclined to vote, not objective, unschooled in civics, those that vote on the race of the candidate (which I’ve considered differently than being non-objective) and those that are just plain stupid you’ll end up with a number like 310,918.
If those 310,918, assuming voting patterns mime Gallop’s profile of the electorate, 42 percent are independent and 29 and 27 percent(s) are Democrats and Republicans respectively. The unclaimed 4 percent belong to the green/communist/socialist/mariannewilliamson/etc party.
What all of this means, essentially, is that candidates in both parties are vying for the votes of those least qualified to choose a good leader. They campaign accordingly. Everything you see or hear about any candidate is either designed to influence the closed minded, ignorant and uninformed idiot/bigot or to keep them that way. If you find yourself agreeing with one of those 30 second ad spots you may want to think about what they said that has enamored you to their cause.
Ads, with fain attempts at ridicule, such as the one below are perfect for what they were designed for: keeping the sheep tightly within the confines of the flock. It ridicules the other side and, as an added bonus (for those not paying close attention), shit-cans the idea of a bicameral legislature by laying the blame for dysfunction at the feet of the ‘Republican Congress’.
Playing to the prejudices of their constituents has, unfortunately, become the hallmark of American politics: that folks is what diversity brings to the table.